Dusty Video Box

Tuesday, 16 October 2018

This was Dario Argento’s first film and shows remarkable
restraint in creating a giallo light on bloodshed but high on primal,
discomforting terror. As Roger Ebert said in his review of the time, “…its scares are on a much more basic level
than in, say, a thriller by Hitchcock. It works mostly by exploiting our fear
of the dark.” I’d go further than that and say that it exploits our fear of
being surprised, overwhelmed and not being able to fight back let alone control
our situation.

At the start of the film, American writer Sam Dalmas
(Tony Musante) witnesses an attempted murder in an art gallery; a woman
stumbles down the stairs, clutching her chest and falls bleeding onto the floor
as her shadowy assailant makes good his escape. Sam sees everything and runs
across only to find himself trapped between the interior shop window and
another plane of glass in front. Like a fly in a bottle he can’t get in to help
the girl and he can’t run away to get help: he can only bang on the windows in
hope. It’s a great set piece and is mirrored later when his girlfriend Julia
(Suzy Kendall) is alone in their flat and the killer attempts to hack his way
in: she can’t escape and is paralysed with fear, trapped with no way forward…
your worst nightmare; suspended between mortal fear and the instinct to escape
when there is no way out…

These moments are so memorable because they play more on
the human cost of horror. It’s all very well showing gore but what really
troubles us isn’t the largely not simple revulsion but the moment all our
resistance will be futile.

Eva Renzi

Around this powerful sentiment, Argento builds a crafty
plot that leaves us guessing all the way through until one of the smartest twists
in Giallo leaves us gasping, following a camera-destroying shot so audacious
you wonder why no one thought of it before…

But all that’s ahead and there’s no spoilers here.

The victim of the attack, Monica Ranieri (Eva Renzi)
recovers in hospital and with her husband Alberto (Umberto Raho) seemingly in
the clear, Inspector Morosini (Enrico Maria Salerno) has Sam immediately under
suspicion and it’s another basic fear; we’re guilty enough without being
assumed so. But this isn’t the only murder/attempted murder and as then viewers
have already seen, there has already been one murder with the gloved hands of
the culprit seen focusing a camera lens on a young woman who is then found
stabbed… before long another follows.

Witness: Tony Musante

Sam is due to return home to America but can’t shake the
incident off and begins to dig deeper despite the pleadings of Julia (did I
ever mention how Suzy Kendall is practically perfect?). He visits the owner of a gallery where the
first victim, a sales assistant supplementing her income through prostitution…
had sold a strange painting just before she was killed.

There’s a clever moment when Argento switches from Sam
and Julia looking in shock at the black and white copy and then to the colour
original, pulling the camera back to reveal the killer dressed in black leather
hat and coat, staring at the image: the power of visual imagery, unsettling
emotional response connecting the participants. The killer looks at photographs
of the next victim – a woman photographed at a race course – then pulls out a
knife, looking once more at the macabre acrylic inspiration on the wall.

Suzy Kendall

Sam visits the strange artist who painted the strange
painting and learns little only that the painting was one of a number depicting
the violent murder of a woman… how is this connected to the killings? These
investigations get him noticed and he’s assaulted after visiting Signore
Ranieri… the killer obviously knows him now and this is personal.

A game of bird and mouse ensues with the killer making
threatening phone calls to Sam and Juliawith the strange sounds of what turns out to be the titular avian in the
background adding to the sense of unease whilst also providing the ultimate
“witness”, if only they can find the liar.

There’s constant unease in the everyday with Sam chasing
someone the killer into a convention centre only to find it packed full of
people wearing the same work clothes… the murderer is hiding in plain sight and
could be anyone.

I don't know much about art but I know what I don't like...

Then there is the, inevitable, moment when the killer
tries to kill Julia evading police protection and laying siege to the apartment
as she tries to overcome the paralysis of fear. It’s horrible stuff and Kendall
plays a blinder as she is ultimately saved by the arrival of the – supposedly watchful
– police…

But, and it is a very important but, the killer is another
classic example of giallo double/triple think and beyond, working with so much
with people’s preconceptions and gender role expectations. Now whether this was
post-factual rationalisation or planned throughout till makes it valid.

Dusty Video Box
Verdict: The ending will hopefully surprise you… but it’s the overall film that
is counts and I think it deserves it reputation of genre busting because of its
intelligence and overall style: frightening people through atmospherics and
uncertainty – out-thinking them! – is always more difficult than just using
gore and director Dario Argento succeeds here like few others before or since.

The film is available on Arrow Bluray and is essential for
all fans of Giallo and Italian film of the era.

Tuesday, 28 August 2018

I had no idea that Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais had
been such prolific producers of feature films prior to their career in TV
sitcoms. I grew up in time for Whatever
Happened to the Likely Lads, Porridge
and then Auf Wiedersehen Pet, but
it’s only latterly I’ve caught their films such as To Catch a Spy (Kirk Douglas and Marlene Jobert spy caper), the
magnificent Otley (Tom Courtney and
Romy Schneider Notting Hill spy caper) and Jokers
(Michael Crawford and Oliver Reed crime caper…). These films are patchy but
ambitious and attempt to create very British products both in terms of location
and humour.

With Villain
they turned their sights on real crime and the huge impact celebrity criminals
like the Kray twins had on British society even after they had both been locked
up for good. They enlisted Richard Burton to play a crime lord along their
lines, this one apparently brought up in the East End via South Wales with an
accent flitting about somewhere between the two. In all other respects Burton
is perfectly believable as the hardman with a soft spot for his mum and young
Ian McShane. For the period it’s perhaps a juxtaposition to have a gay-hearted
gangster but Ronnie’s sexuality was never a barrier to his free expression of
violent intent.

Wolfie and Vic

The film’s a bit coy on the men’s relationship, concerned
with Burton’s believability perhaps and a more explicit sex scene was cut over
concern with audience reaction. The man himself took it in his stride telling
McShane that he reminded him of Elizabeth: it may have been the hair perhaps?

Interestingly, the story was based on the book Burden of Proof by James Barlow, and a
treatment by the American actor Al Lettieri, a 'tough-guy' in films such as The Godfather and who had actual
connections with the New York Gambino Family. This coupled with some crisp
dialogue and strong performances – what a cast list - ads a level of
believability that leaves this film not that far behind the more stylised Get Carter and the under-rated The Reckoning.

Burton is Vic Dakin, master of hard-won turf in the East
End – the location shots are a great window on those streets 48 years ago – and
is coolly in control using violence to control the streets and anyone
unfortunate enough to descend into his demi-monde. The opening sequence shows a
well-to-do business man being violently taken to task and ending up dangling
from his Knightsbridge window ledge with his girlfriend in hysterics.

Gerald looks to make new connections with Wolfie's friend Venetia

Vic’s got his fingers in many pies and runs parties at which
the supposedly well-to-do can be entertained with and then blackmailed. One MP,
Gerald Draycott (a nervy-pervy Donald Sinden) apparently based on Lord
Boothby, has a weakness for younger girls and Vic is only too happy to oblige
so long as Gerald scratches his back too.

Vic’s left-hand man is Wolfe Lissner (Ian McShane) who
has a way with the ladies and procures the required talent. Wolfie’s smart and
does what he must but his attempt to lead a life of his own with girlfriend
Venetia (Fiona Lewis) is compromised by his being the apple of Vic’s eye too,
still, he just about manages the balance.

Vic’s other henchmen are well cast Tony Selby, cockney-dubbed
as Duncan, Del Henney – always believable in these roles - as Webb and John
Hallam as Terry. You wouldn’t want to cross any of them.

Del and Tony

Out to catch them is Detective Bob Matthews (an
impeccable Nigel Davenport) and his partner, Sergeant Tom Binney (Colin Welland);
men who are from the same backgrounds but who chose a different path: whilst
the villains hang out in strip bars and West End flats, plod tends their
gardens in suburbia. The interplay between Vic and Bob (oh yes!) is a joy to
watch with Burton and Davenport clearly relishing playing two sides of the same
coin.

Vic has always relied on his mother to keep whatever
sanity he has and, whilst she seems oblivious to his profession, Mrs Dakin (Cathleen
Nesbitt) is of failing health and this starts to undermine her son’s judgement.
He gets approached buy a man called Brown (James Cossins), a disaffected employee
with secrets to sell concerning the payroll where he works but this is on the
patch of rival boss, Frank Fletcher (T. P. McKenna).

Colin Welland, Nigel Davenport and Ian McShane

Against Woolfie’s advice, Vic meets with Frank and his
nervy, hypochondriacal right-hand man Lowis (an unsettling and febrile
performance from Joss Ackland) and eventually agree that the deal is just too
good to miss.

If the plot has one major flaw it’s that these two bosses
would get involved in the actual robbery, especially given the power Vic wields
in the straight world… but, as his mother passes away and he becomes
emotionally, as well as physically-dependent on Wolfie, he is intent on
proving himself.

Will the job go as plan and will there be honour amongst thieves?
Events play out with well-crafted action sequences, all shot on rugged
locations in London which looks impressively careworn in 1970 as the cops and robbers’
career around in top of the range Rovers.

Joss Ackland, TP McKenna, John Hallam and Richard Burton

Dusty Verdict:
The film makes some interesting points about criminal charisma but ultimately
falls short of the class of say The Robbery or Get Carter. That said, Burton is
eminently watchable – if not listenable – and carries the right menace to the
end. There’s great support from Ian McShane – what a career he’s still having –
he manages to make Wolfie a sympathetic schemer who’s just wheedled himself in
to Vic’s world too deep to escape the man’s control and his – now unwelcome –
passion.

Fiona Lewis is, as always, highly-watchable – the very
model of a theatrically-trained, modern player amongst so many greats of the
previous generation. It is a superb cast throughout. Plus, there's great motors, lots of them; Jags, Rovers, Fords... all high performance and driven at speed! Yes, I am shallow.

Fiona is highly watchable...

Victim’s breathless
ending leaves open the question of whether right is might and this – as ever –
remains pertinent; there are still Vic Dakins out there and not all,
necessarily, in the business of crime…